Catch Me
by JenniBMHG1023
Summary: But you're so hypnotizing You've got me laughing while I sing You've got me smiling in my sleep And I can see this unraveling Your love is where I'm falling But please don't catch me Kimberly Anne Crawford swore to herself that she would never fall in love because falling in love means that you will get hurt. A certain karate prodigy is becoming a problem for her. What will she do?


**Hey guys, Jenni here :) Well this one shot was written last night when I was listening to one of my favorite songs _Catch Me _by the oh so famous, Demi Lovato. Demi is one of my favorite artists and I don't know. I guess listening to her song gave me inspiration haha.**

**Well anyway, without further ado, here's my new one-shot. Enjoy!**

"Kim, come one, just tell me what's wrong!" Jack yelled at the blonde girl who was currently moving her lithe legs as fast as she could to get away from the boy. She could hear her own feet on the pavement; every time her foot connected to the ground it made an annoying slapping sound. Her feet weren't the only thing she could hear; she could also hear the sound of her heart thumping in her chest and her labored breathing from running so fast. Kim wanted to tell him, she wanted to tell him why she was so mad, and she wanted to tell him why she couldn't just talk to him, but she couldn't. She had to believe it herself first.

"Kim, please, just tell me what's-" Jack tried again but couldn't finish his sentence because Kim interrupted him.

"Just leave me alone, Jack!" She yelled over her shoulder. She knew that the black belt prodigy was running after her, and she figured he had already determined where they were heading. There were only two places Kimberly Anne Crawford went to when she had her emotions out of control, and that was either the Wasabi Dojo, where she could beat up a whole mess of dummies, or the park a few blocks away from school. Jack has comforted Kim at the park before, examples including when Jamie embarrassed her in front of the whole school or when her grandma passed away, so he should know where Kim was leading him to.

School had just ended, and she knew that her other friends would be heading to the dojo. Kim had worked hard to make herself fit in at the dojo, being that she was the only girl there. She didn't need people, much less her friends, to see her in a state of vulnerability. Kim had sworn to herself that she would never allow anyone see her in a state of emotional distress, knowing that that was a sign of weakness, and Kim Crawford was anything but weak.

Yet here she was, running as fast as her lean legs could carry her towards the park, tears threatening to spill out of her eyes with each step that she took. She could hear Jack's footsteps behind her, and she should hear him calling out after her every few seconds, but she didn't care. She just wanted to get to the old swing set as soon as possible and allow herself a few minutes of release. She was almost there, she just needed to run another block, but Jack finally got a hold of her.

"Kim, tell me what's wrong, and tell me right now," Jack ordered, his voice soft as his worried brown eyes stared into her tear brimmed chocolate eyes. Before any of the tears could fall, Jack wiped her eyes with his thumbs, holding her face gently in place.

"Kimmy, why are you crying? Please, just tell me what's wrong," He asked her, worry evident in his voice as he held her. Kim looked to the people walking down the streets and then to her feet, obviously uncomfortable crying in a public area. Jack seemed to get the hint and took hold of her hand, guiding her towards a small alleyway between two buildings. Kim didn't say anything as he pulled her, but he could hear her sniffling behind him.

"Look Kim, I'm not a mind reader and if you want me to help you I'm going to need you to tell me what's wrong. Please Kim, I'm your best friend," Jack pleaded with her, still holding her small hand in his. The girl took a shaky breath and looked at her best friend in the eyes, for the first time since school ended, voluntarily.

"You chose me," She said so quietly that Jack had to strain his hearing to try to catch a glimpse of what she said. He sighed.

"I'm sorry Kim, but I couldn't hear you. Speak a little louder please," He said softly, looking down at Kim.

"You chose me over Donna today, and you chose me over Ashley yesterday, and two weeks ago you chose me over Samantha," the blonde told the skater, knowing that he wouldn't understand what she meant.

"Of course I chose you Kim, you're more important to me than all of those girl combined," Or maybe he did know what she meant. Maybe he did understand how it made her feel when Jack rejected Donna's offer to eat lunch with her and the other cheerleaders, and instead chose to eat lunch with Kim, knowing that Jerry, Milton, and Eddie were in the science lab doing who knows what. Maybe he did understand how much it meant to her when he defended her against Ashley's teasing, and maybe he did understand how she felt when he told her that he'd rather go to the movies with his best friend rather than Snotty Samantha.

Maybe he did understand.

Kimberly Anne Crawford was scared and her emotions were running on an all time high, so before she could even think about what she was doing, she had her lips pressed against Jack's frozen and shocked ones. A second passed as he processed what was happening, and then they were kissing. The kiss was soft and sweet, a few tears slipping from Kim's eyes as Jack's soft lips moved against hers, his calloused hands holding her face gently in place.

It was over soon, and Kim separated her lips from Jack's slowly. When she opened his eyes she noticed that he had a small smile of satisfaction on his face, as if he had been waiting for them to kiss for a while. She looked into his eyes for the second time since school ended and she saw such raw emotion, confusion, happiness, tenderness and something else that she just couldn't bring herself to believe.

Kim wasn't ready for that; she couldn't bring herself to feel that one emotion.

So Kim did the only thing that she could do. She ran, and even though she could hear Jack yelling her name behind her, where he was most likely still frozen on the spot, she didn't look back once.

To love is to get hurt, that's what her father always told her. She doesn't want to get hurt.

_Before I fall too fast__  
__Kiss me quick,__  
__But make it last__  
__So I can see how badly this will hurt me__  
__When you say goodbye__Keep it sweet__  
__Keep it slow__  
__Let the future pass__  
__And don't let go__  
__But tonight I could fall too soon into this beautiful moonlight_

Kim Crawford doesn't want to fall for anyone. She doesn't want to feel the butterflies in her stomach in the beginning and think to herself, "Hey this is actually kind of nice," only to have her heart stomped on in a few months. She doesn't want it nor does she need it. It was one roller coaster that she did not want to ride.

Jack had been becoming a problem for her though. She knew what she was feeling and even though it felt so good and it felt so right, she knew that it wouldn't last. The blonde understood that what she was feeling was bad and nowhere near right. Kim just could not afford getting herself hurt, especially by her best friend.

But Jack was just so... _Jack_. His hair was so soft (she's played with it on multiple occasions), the way he looked at her all the time... Kim really loved his chocolate brown eyes; they always held so much emotion, whether he was mad at her or happy, but Kim loved them most when he laughed. His brown eyes shown with such brightness that she just couldn't believe that someone's eyes could be so gorgeous. Besides, his laugh was wonderful as well; she thought it was super cute when his nose scrunched up and the way his laughter was always so genuine. He was strong, and she loved how he didn't hold back on her just because she was a girl and how he knew that she was very talented in karate and could handle herself.

She loved a lot of things about him.

Kim could not sleep at night, because he was always on her mind. Whenever she dreamed of him, and she has dreamed of him numerous times, it was always a pleasant dream. It always involved something along the lines of them sparring or just having fun. The dream would always end with him leaning his face closer to hers, but she would always wake up before anything could happen. She would always wake up disappointed and longing what would most definitely never happen.

_But you're so hypnotizing__  
__You've got me laughing while I sing__  
__You've got me smiling in my sleep__  
__And I can see this unraveling__  
__Your love is where I'm falling__  
__But please don't catch me_

Kim was lying down on her bed, her pink and grey journal open in front of her, but her mechanical pencil wasn't moving across the paper like it usually did. The blonde's mind was completely blank. She's never had this bad of a case of writer's block before.

Why did she take out her journal if she couldn't even conjure up a sentence to write? Surely there must be something she could write about, but the poor girl couldn't think of anything. She tried to come up with a sentence one last time, but again, her mind wasn't working and her pencil was not moving.

She could hear her heart pounding in her chest, and she briefly wondered if she would have a heart attack in a few minutes. Her mind was filled with a certain brown eyed black belt, and just thinking about him was making her get an arrhythmia. She allowed her head to drop onto the bed and she groaned, the noise sounding defeated in her empty room. She glanced at herself in the mirror situated on top of her dresser, and her reflection looked... scared.

The blonde girl glanced down at her journal once more and wrote down two words before shutting close her book and throwing it under her pillow. _'I'm scared.'_

Kimberly Anne Crawford was scared.

_See this heart__  
__Won't settle down__  
__Like a child running scared from a clown__  
I'm__ terrified of what you do__  
M__y stomach screams just when I look at you_

Kim couldn't breathe. She would try to take in a breath, but it came out as ragged and forced. Her chest was beginning to hurt from the constant pounding of her heart. She could see Jack at the end of the court, and she briefly wondered what would happen if he left. Would her breathing be able to get back to normal? She quickly dismissed the idea, remembering how she had felt when he was offered that scholarship for the Otai Academy. Kim had felt so heartbroken, alone, and sad. She suddenly came to a realization.

She would rather feel what she's feeling right now than feel so heartbroken if Jack ever left.

Kim took a few deep breaths and tried to get her breathing back to normal. _'It's just Jack,' _she thought to herself. _'No need for a panic attack. You guys are best friends; it's going to be fine.'_

She took a few more breaths and then started walking towards Jack, not seeing anybody around her, just focusing on the brown haired boy. He seemed to notice her when she was a few steps away from him and excused himself from his friends, taking a few long strides to reach Kim.

The blonde girl tried to find her voice and managed to squeak out, "Hi."

Jack swallowed and gave her a small smile. "Hey."

What could Kim say to that? She said hi, he said hey, now what?

"Um… Could we talk somewhere a little more private?" The girl asked while looking at her shoes.

Jack nodded his head but then realized that Kim wasn't looking at him so he said, "Sure."

Jack took her hand, and Kim blushed and had to resist the urge to remove her hands from his. He led her to a vacant spot in between some trees, and looked at her expectantly.

"Look Kim—"

"I'm sorry," the blonde blurt out before the boy could say anything. Her heart started speeding up once more and her breathing was becoming difficult again.

_'Well,' _she thought, _'It's now or never.'_

_Run far away__  
__So I can breathe__  
__Even though your far from suffocating me__  
__I can't set my hopes to high__  
__'Cause every hello ends with a goodbye__  
_

"I like you Jack. I like you a whole lot and it's terrifying," the blonde said, her southern accent becoming apparent for a few seconds.

"I don't want to like you. I don't want to feel scared or vulnerable because my dad has told me a lot of awful things about… about love and I just can't afford to get hurt. I mean, look at my dad. My mom left him for some rich guy and she never looked back. She didn't care about me, she didn't care about my dad, and I was alone.

"That was the first time I have ever seen my dad cry Jack, _my dad_. He's the strongest person I know and he was broken, and I have to deal with that for the rest of my life. I don't want to feel the way he did, I _never _want to feel the way he did, but you're becoming a problem.

"I can't stop think about you, Jack. I can't stop thinking about your laugh or about your smile and for god's sakes my heart just keeps on beating faster and faster whenever I see you. I shouldn't be feeling this way, and I shouldn't be telling you, but I think this feeling might be… real."

_But you're so hypnotizing__  
__You've got me laughing while I sing__  
__You've got me smiling in my sleep__  
__And I can see this unraveling__  
__Your love is where I'm falling__  
__But please don't catch me__So now you see__  
__Why I'm scared__  
__I can't open up my heart without a care__  
__But here I go__  
__It's what I feel__  
__And for the first time in my life I know it's real_

Kim finished her speech and looked away from the boy, taking a sudden interest in her black and pink beat up Converse instead.

Jack was quiet for a moment, and in that moment all Kim could hear was the beating of her own heart and the blood rushing through her ears. _'He doesn't like me, he's probably thinking of a way to let me down easily,' _the girl thought to herself. Kim made sure that she didn't cry, but she couldn't help it if her eyes got watery.

"I didn't know you had all of that baggage stuck in you Kimmy," Jack said, and Kim could feel his eyes on her, bracing herself for him to tell her that he didn't feel the same way. "But I want you to know that I am never going to hurt you; I'm never going to let you go."

Kim's eyes widened and she slowly looked up from her feet and met his brown eyes, noticing how they were full of honesty and sincerity. Why was she so afraid? Jack would never hurt her. Her breathing became normal, and her heart pounding slowed down.

She smiled at him, and he smiled back._But you're so hypnotizing__  
__You've got me laughing while I sing__  
__You've got me smiling in my sleep__  
__And I can see this unraveling__  
__Your love is where I'm falling__  
__So please don't catch me__  
_

His strong arms slowly wrapped themselves around Kim's tiny waist, and the girl didn't try to stop him. She let him pull her closer to him. _'Jack would never hurt me,' _she thought to herself.

_If this is love__  
__Please don't break me_

He started leaning in. The girl could smell his sweet cologne, and she wondered if he could smell her soft perfume.

_I'm giving up_

She forgot about her fear, she forgot about her mom and everything her dad has ever told her about love. All that mattered in that moment was Jack, and the fact that he returned the same feelings that she had towards him. She started to lean in.

_So just catch me…_

**So I actually really liked this one shot. I really liked putting in all of "Kim's" emotions into this one I had a good time writing it. Please guys, review, review, review. It really does keep me going and I have like three more stories planned out for you guys so I would really appreciate the support. Well anyway, love you guys and thanks again for reading :)**

_**-Jenni**_


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